Sweden's Laureate: Selected Poems of Verner von Heidenstam/Muchail's Evening Prayer
MUCHAIL'S EVENING PRAYER.
At sunset all the married Mussulmans of Kasan fell on their knees upon the flat roofs of the houses and praised the One and cried: "I thank God that I am not made a woman!"
Only the old Muchail, who was more than eighty years old and had a whole life's experience, stood erect with his arms crossed and knitted his brows and cried or chanted loudly:
"Grimy with labor, to my home I reel,
Now that the glowing star of eve doth summon,
Keen as a glimmer on Damascus steel.
I grieve, oh God, I was not made a woman.
Not that meseemeth in Thy plan
A woman is more fair than is a man.
He is to her—such boldness doth endow
His form, and so half-rakish he doth pride him—
As is the fiery bull unto the cow
That licks her udder lazily beside him.
Nor soon in me the thought doth fade
That all of Kasan's town by man was made.
He doth not murmur, though he slave for both.
Late by the lamp he holds his weary session,
The while his women empty, nothing loth,
The sherbet glass, and prate of man's oppression.
'Twas his worn hand that dug the well, where burst
The cooling streams that quench these women's thirst.
Their house—'tis man must bring the stones and rear it.
Aye, give to each his burden, as is right!
I grieve but, God, for this … Oh, read my spirit!
I fain would be a woman that I might
Give unto man the love his virtues merit."
Now that the glowing star of eve doth summon,
Keen as a glimmer on Damascus steel.
I grieve, oh God, I was not made a woman.
Not that meseemeth in Thy plan
A woman is more fair than is a man.
He is to her—such boldness doth endow
His form, and so half-rakish he doth pride him—
As is the fiery bull unto the cow
That licks her udder lazily beside him.
Nor soon in me the thought doth fade
That all of Kasan's town by man was made.
He doth not murmur, though he slave for both.
Late by the lamp he holds his weary session,
The while his women empty, nothing loth,
The sherbet glass, and prate of man's oppression.
'Twas his worn hand that dug the well, where burst
The cooling streams that quench these women's thirst.
Their house—'tis man must bring the stones and rear it.
Aye, give to each his burden, as is right!
I grieve but, God, for this … Oh, read my spirit!
I fain would be a woman that I might
Give unto man the love his virtues merit."